Chapter Sixteen: A Fear so Pervasive
"I will only speak to Bevan Emerit."
Dagger had returned from the cult grounds: he had to escape two members of the Moonlight Squad, who had been alerted by Augury. He now sat with a just-awoken Manfred von Stauffenberg in an interrogation room. Dagger wasn't willing to risk torture: he knew that suicide violated Manfred's moral principles, but he didn't want to see how strong those were in the face of extreme pain.
Manfred was a middle-aged man. He wore a crimson suit, embellished with a lavish cloak with ancient decorations. His hair was a light grey, and he had a two-part moustache. Most notable, though, was his smug smile: he had the irritating habit of being far more intelligent than everyone around him.
"I too have seen glimpses into your mind, Christopher. And so the natural path from that is… I want to speak to Bevan." Manfred spoke in a thick, foreign accent. He had immigrated for marital reasons, but his wife had been executed long ago for crimes against the Oligarchy.
"Too bad. You've got me."
"Then we shall sit here until I die – yes, I am that stubborn. I promise I will not communicate to him that he possesses synthetic psychic abilities."
Dagger's eyes scrunched up angrily, and he released a Gallade.
"You plan to torture me?"
"Gallade, look into his mind and tell me whether he intends to inform or even suggest to Bevan that he has psychic abilities."
Gallade closed his eyes, and nodded to his master. "Very well. I'll get Bevan, and leave Gallade to stand guard. And if you happen to change your mind throughout the interview process, we'll knock you out and throw you in a Seviper pit."
"You're not a very kind host, Dagger. Just bring me the boy."
Five minutes later, Bevan entered the room.
"I hear you know Augury."
"Your father. But you already knew that."
Bevan sat down on one of the hard, wooden chairs. "What do you want?"
"Do you know what happened to get us to where we are now? Do you know what caused the Event?"
"No, but unlike you, I don't make up bogus explanations for it."
Manfred chuckled derisively. "Dear boy, it seems that Charlotte has not told you. Her view is warped anyway – the view I must preach is riddled with inaccuracies enforced by the Oligarchs in order to make their rule appear divine. In reality, the Oligarchs have nothing to do with it. But the core principles are the same.
"About a century ago, a man named Cyrus challenged a powerful, trans-dimensional Pokémon called Giratina. The ensuing battle ripped open a portal to another dimension, thereby causing an apocalypse of sorts."
"Why are you telling me this nonsense? It's not like I'll believe you."
"I know you won't. But it's important for you to know now, because I feel at some point in your life you will know it to be real."
"You're insane." Bevan got up to leave, but Manfred raised a hand. "I will not tell anybody in your organisation anything unless I get my chance with you, Bevan. I sense that you have a newfound appreciation for reason over emotion. So it's hardly a difficult choice, then, is it?"
Reluctantly, Bevan sat down. "Okay, von Stauffenberg. What do you want?"
"Now, why does everyone refer to me by my last name? It's so unfriendly, so cold. And it's not even practical: Manfred is two less syllables."
"I repeat, Manfred: what do you want?"
"To talk to you about Cyrus. To tell you a little about his life."
"Cyrus – the character your cult's invented that supposedly killed the world?"
"So distrustful at such a tender age, Bevan."
"Why should I believe anything you have to say?"
"You're right: I have no way to convince you. You know I have psychic abilities, but you just ascribe that to some indeterminate source, or some special gift. You have no thirst for knowledge if it is not quickly attainable. I have had a dialogue with Giratina for years, as did my father, and grandfather. Or, at least I did, until its spirit was split. But that's another story."
Bevan grimaced, impatient.
"Anyway, Cyrus. According to Giratina, he lived a distant childhood. He was homeschooled to an emotionally distant mother and an abusive father. He longed for attention, but he was smart: he knew he wouldn't get it from them. But he was too weird. He couldn't make friends. Besides which, he was homeschooled, just like yourself.
"So instead, he learned that his only company would be machines. At the tender age of ten, he had given up all hope of ever attaining social contact. This was very depressing for him, and over five years, it made him lose happiness. He had lost all positive emotion. Essentially, he was depressed. There was only anger, self-loathing, and self-pity.
"He tried to take his own life by jumping out of his bedroom window, and failed. After that incident, he was taken from his home and placed into an orphanage. Around that time, he decided that suicide was not the way for him to defeat his depression. But neither was happiness. Both seemed irrational at this point in his life.
"Instead, he thought he had to block out all emotion: he had to become a goal-driven, emotionless, perfectly rational vessel. The only emotion which anybody ever saw him convey beyond the age of about eighteen was contempt. And even then, that was when he was at his most vulnerable and irrational."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I saw a glimpse of you through your Gliscor last night. And through Dagger. And you reminded me of Cyrus. He brought about an apocalypse, Bevan. You can see why I don't want you to become like him."
"So you're scared of me, but not Dagger?"
"I'm scared of neither of you. But I am scared of what you will become. You've taken Dagger's words to heart, Bevan, and you're trying to purge emotion from your life. Even Dagger isn't like that. Last night, he felt fear. And then as he captured me, glee. When I insisted on speaking to you, frustration. He may be an extraordinary individual, but at a primal level, he's an ordinary human.
"You, on the other hand, could conceivably shed yourself of emotion. And that, Bevan, makes you more terrifying than anyone I have ever met: moreso than Rex, a sadistic psychopath, Lord Augury, a ruthless tyrant, and Dagger, a fringe terrorist."
"You're a whackjob if you're more scared of me than someone who controls the entire Oligarchy."
"One person's whackjob is another person's visionary, Bevan. But I feel you don't understand what I'm saying. Heed my warning: if you shed yourself of emotion, you cease to be human. Your life becomes cruel and, dare I say it, evil."
"Is that all, Manfred?"
"Yes, Bevan. You can leave now." Manfred turned to the one-way mirror. "And you can come in."
Bevan exited the room, leaving the door open for Dagger to enter.
"Now that I've focused on Bevan's problems, we can focus on yours."
Dagger recalled Gallade, and his eyes glinted with frustration. "My problems?"
"Suppose for a second that we're characters in a story, Dagger. Before, you could have been construed by the reader as an anti-hero: you kill others, but it's for a noble cause. But with this most recent plot twist, where you would not kill yourself for that same cause, your hypocrisy has been exposed. You are now no longer an anti-hero, Dagger, but a villain."
"If only it was so easy to classify people like that."
"People love to be classified, Christopher. They love to be lumped into a group of people similar to them, to be part of a team. You don't, but you're the exception. You go against the curve. But even that is a classification, a group of people you're lumped in with."
"We had a deal. You get to psychoanalyse Bevan and then you tell me the secret of the psychic powers."
"Oh, that. Slight technicality there."
"Technicality?"
"Well, my lawyer would argue that as hard as he could." Manfred looked around, exaggerating shifty eyes, and then said in a loud whisper, "But off the record, I lied."
"But, Gallade-"
"Did not probe for whether or not I was lying about giving you information. And I used my own psychic abilities to prevent him from passively picking that up."
Dagger tilted his head in anger.
"Temper, temper, terrorist. Any more of that and I'll have to alliterate some more."
"You think you're funny?"
"If I don't, who will? We are in grave times, Dagger. Laughter ameliorates it, if only a little. But if you want to speak seriously, then fine. You threatened to throw me into a Seviper pit. If it comes down to that, I'll just snap my own neck and be done with it. If I betray Lord Augury, and he captures me, well… he can punish me and suppress my psychic powers, so I can't hasten my own death."
"I can be just as cruel as Augury," said Dagger. His tone indicated, almost, that he thought that his capacity for cruelty coming into question was insulting.
"Are you familiar with the penalty of hanging?"
"Yes – it's ancient, but hardly barbaric."
"What if one were not to be hanged with rope, but barbed wire? What if the skin of the prisoner's neck were to be peeled off, as he slowly slipped down, all the while experiencing suffocation? Lord Augury has used such a penalty as a punishment for incompetence. If he can be that creative without the use of Pokémon, then imagine how creative he'll be motivated to be if I betray him?"
"So you're resigning yourself to death?"
"You could always hand me back," smiled Manfred.
"Or, I could kill your daughter." At this suggestion, Manfred's face darkened and his eyes narrowed. "How much of your family would you sacrifice? How much blood will be shed until you stop protecting He who is Merely a Rumour, a man whom you loathe?"
"You test my good humour, Christopher."
"And you've tested my awful one. Make a choice: your family or Augury?"
"You missed out option number three," said Manfred. "I could telekinetically spin my head in a three-hundred and sixty degree motion, and you would have nothing. If you go after my daughter, or any member of my family, I will know. And I will kill myself so you get nothing."
"Well, Manfred, you're not making this easy for me. Right now, you're no better alive than dead. So give me some value to your life before I kill your family out of spite."
Manfred locked eyes with Dagger. "You may think you know the nature of Lord Augury, but you cannot even begin to understand it. You see the visible power: his influence over government, his supernatural abilities, and most recently, his incredible command over Pokémon. But you fail to see what makes him truly powerful: he inspires fear. A fear so pervasive that he was able to tell his Oligarchs outright that they will soon cease to be Oligarchs, and they didn't speak a word against him."
"Wait – what?"
"Oh, you are behind the times, Dagger. Lord Augury plans to make himself the autocrat, ruling over Torcra in the open, with the Oligarchs reduced to his lieutenants. You've taken advantage of his secrecy, and now he's taking that advantage away from you."
"And providing this information doesn't count as betrayal?"
"He's communicated to me that he suspects you know, and that if you do, he doesn't care. I must say, I'm disappointed. You seemed so competent."
"If I were to be able to protect you, would you teach us psychic powers?"
"No. It is a sacred art that I have shown to the wrong person before. I'm not making that mistake again."
"Then what value are you?"
"I understand Augury's psychology. You can't defeat him in body, but you can defeat him in mind. I know what he values, and I know his secret. But I would never help you unless you could prove that you can protect me."
Dagger turned away in frustration, and then smoothly turned back. "Cicero," he said triumphantly.
"Cicero? The one failure of Augury's Moonlight Squad?"
"Yes. He's working for us. Would that be proof enough for you, Manfred, that we can protect you?"
"If you can protect Cicero, then you can protect me. Show him to me, and I'll tell you what you need to do to conquer Augury psychologically. And, of course, the secret that he's kept from almost everyone."
